Rondeau: Safe
by ambiguously
Summary: Sabine Wren, in a collage of mothers and daughters.


Notes: Rocks fall, everyone dies, this is not the happy ending you're looking for, brief mentions of Clone Wars and the movies

* * *

The holding had been in Satine's family for four generations, a leftover from a relative's fascination with hunting game. Isolated but lovely, the house and lands clung to severe mountains far enough away from the rest of her life that no rumor would ever chase her back home. Dresses could be let out, worn casually, covered over with fine robes. The puffy skin in her face was explained by a simple illness, cured by several weeks of fresh air away from the worst of Mandalorian political woes.

Satine rocked her daughter in her arms, breathing in the good, clean smell of infant hair.

Her own position hung with precarious worry. The man she loved had said he would have defied the Council for her, and lost himself, and for what? They all knew, everyone knew, that the Jedi came for children when they yet clung to their parents' legs, old enough to toddle, old enough to be weaned, old enough to be taken. Better not to tell him, or tell anyone. Her child would be raised in anonymity, and Satine would come see her as often as she dared. Only three servants lived here, all loyal enough to her to lie even to the rest of her family.

She was safe.

* * *

Nowhere was safe, not from the ravages of Pre Vizsla and his Death Watch. The message gutted her. The household had been attacked, as had three villages in the valleys below. No survivors.

Satine could tell no one and now she had nothing to tell.

She wondered, as the days passed, if the vicious killers had no heart at all, if none would hear the squall of a tiny infant and be moved to pity just once.

Maul knew no pity, but she would spare Obi-Wan the pain of losing them both as her life blood poured out and her sight slipped into darkness.

* * *

The girl was afraid of all of them, even with her injuries. She would only let Hera get close enough to patch her up. For weeks, Sabine kept her helmet on as much as she could, and when she showed her face, she kept wary watch on Kanan and Zeb, expecting a fight. Hera didn't dare push the fragile relationship she had achieved with the girl by asking why.

"You're safe here," Hera told her, giving her space, and the means of locking her own room.

She thawed, learning with time and patience that no one on the crew intended her any harm, even the astromech. The helmet stayed on, but there were friendly smiles underneath from time to time.

"You're sure?" Hera asked Kanan, two days after they found Sabine, and again a month later.

He shrugged each time. "I can feel she's got some power. I don't know if she'll ever use it." He left his door open, then left the drawer open, then left the holocron out on a table. The holocron stayed closed, and if Sabine ever noticed, she certainly never said. He put it safely away.

"The gifts can fade over time," he told Hera. "They taught us early how to unlock our powers. Some people do it naturally even without training. Others just go on to live interesting lives."

She thought about the girl, no longer hungry, no longer injured. Sabine spent her spare credits on paints, and knew more about explosives than anyone her age should. Hera said, "Our life is pretty interesting."

"When are you kicking me out?" Sabine asked, days later, eyes hooded again. At Hera's confusion, she said, "You picked me up because you found me hurt and left for dead. I'm fine now. Thanks for that. I can go at the next port."

"I hoped you'd think about staying on as part of the crew." Truthfully, she intended to convince her to stay. The galaxy was a hard place, not safe for a child. It didn't matter if Sabine had powers or not. She needed a home, and people to care for her. "We like you."

That smile came out again, rare and wonderful. "I'll stay."

* * *

Sabine sat atop the _Ghost_ , watching the sky.

"Want to talk about it?" Hera asked, joining her.

"There's nothing to talk about. Literally nothing." Her face drew into a tight ball. "My mother wasn't my mother. She's just someone who stole me when I was little. Bo-Katan won't tell me the names of my real parents. I had a clan, as much as I didn't like it. Now I'm no one."

"Your mother raised you," Hera said, eyes fixed on a faraway star. "She loved you, and she nurtured you, even if she didn't give birth to you. You were pulled from a smoking ruin."

"That they caused, all of them. Including my mother."

"I'm glad she saved you. I know it's hard right now. You're not who you thought you were. But that doesn't mean you're no one. You're one of the best people I've ever met." There was more, but Hera couldn't share it yet. Not until she was certain. Bo-Katan had given up more information, but the price had been that Hera swore to protect someone she'd already promised herself she always would. If what the woman had said was true, Sabine was in even greater danger from Maul should he ever discover who she was. Silence meant her safety.

She placed a hand on Sabine's shoulder. "Give yourself some time. You've been making your own way for years. Now you can explore who you want to be."

"I guess." She rested her head against Hera, and didn't object when Hera pulled her in for a hug.

* * *

They didn't dare fall into complacency just because the Empire's superweapon had been destroyed by Dodonna's cell. Too much still remained at stake.

There was no telling that to the youngsters. The Rebellion had at last consolidated its forces into one strong band, and naturally the first thing that happened was the same as when any large group of young people lived together in close quarters. The kids were no longer kids, and all Hera could do was advise them both to keep their heads. Two strains of an itchy but harmless venereal disease made its way through the ranks. Sabine caught one. Ezra caught both.

Not for the first time, Hera found herself glad she'd skipped most of the painful years of dating. She'd been more interested in circuits and navigational systems back on Ryloth, and when she'd gone to the stars, she'd had no time to spare for dalliances. She hadn't intended to make time, either.

"When did you know? That Kanan was the right one?" Sabine asked her. She'd recovered from her embarrassing malady courtesy of the same needle jab the medical droids were making mandatory in an attempt to stamp out the unfortunate epidemic. Her heart would take longer to heal.

They didn't talk about this much. Everyone knew and had known, but privacy was incredibly valuable in such a tight space as the Rebels found themselves. Hera held onto hers as something precious. Sabine was family, though.

"Oh, I think it must have taken me three or four days at least." She let the smile come. "He says he knew within three or four hours, but I think he's exaggerating."

"It happens that fast?" She sounded shocked, and also concerned.

"Not usually. Kanan and I never do something the normal way. Most people take months or years to sort out their feelings. It's all right to spend time." She knew what Sabine was really asking. "If you like Wedge, you should ask him out."

"It's going to make things hard." She and Ketsu had broken up for the third time two months ago, and her ex had just come back to the Rebellion in time to miss the outbreak. And there was Ezra to consider. He had never been aggressive, not since that one time years back when Kanan had chewed his ear off until he got the message, but he wasn't silent about his feelings, either, outside interests or not.

"That's not your problem. You can't put your life on hold because you're worried about someone else's bruised feelings. Be safe with your own heart. Everyone else can sort out theirs in their own time."

* * *

Wedge didn't work out. Neither did the fourth or fifth time with Ketsu. Sabine was good at hiding her feelings when she hurt, and the times she couldn't, Hera made sure she had a shoulder to cry on. The war went on, and the kids had their own ships to command, but the _Ghost_ was home when the family needed it. Zeb went with whoever wanted his help, and came back as he pleased. Chopper would never leave, no matter how the war went.

Hera kept fighting until she looked around herself and understood the fighting was over. The Empire was gone.

As the galaxy celebrated, and already started to bicker over the new status quo, she let herself sit back in her chair and rest, curiously empty.

"I've been doing this too long," she said.

Kanan took her hand "So learn to do something new."

There were weddings, a lot of weddings. He'd asked her enough times over the years that he'd stopped asking. She asked him this time. Nothing changed, nothing important. They'd decided a long time ago they were spending the rest of their lives together. This was just a formality, and half the people they told afterwards said they'd assumed the two had been married for years.

A few Jedi popped up like flowers after a long drought: a few old-timers, a few youths, and a handful of Force sensitives late to discovering their own powers. Kanan had often remarked how powerful Ezra was, but next to Luke, he was just someone with a few tricks. Worse, when Luke worked with his sister, and wasn't that revelation a shock for everyone, they combined their powers into something Ezra couldn't come close to.

"But we've been working together for years!" he complained to Kanan. "Master Yoda taught Luke a few things, and Leia doesn't know anything. How are they doing that?"

"Master Skywalker was pretty strong in the Force, from what I've heard." He'd told Luke the little he'd known of the man, mostly through Ahsoka. He still couldn't put his finger on the wash of emotion he'd felt when he'd had to tell the poor guy Ahsoka had been killed by Vader years ago.

"She was a connection with his family," Hera said, but Kanan had said he wasn't so sure.

Family was a different issue with Sabine. "You knew?" she demanded, incandescent in her sudden anger.

"We had a hunch."

"You just, what, went running around the galaxy looking for Force sensitive kids?"

"Yes," Hera and Kanan said together.

"Then why didn't you train me?" The anger remained, and a touch of loss. In another lifetime, she might have been as strong as Ezra. Stronger, even, if they were right about her father.

Kanan said, "You didn't pass the test."

Hera said, "Instead we gave you a home, and all the art supplies you could ever want."

Sabine let out a frustrated noise, but already she was less irritated. She wouldn't have been happy on the Jedi path and she knew it. She had to find her own way. They all did.

* * *

The kids didn't get married. They did get a ship together and they didn't bother with the pretense of keeping separate quarters.

"We've been a terrible influence," Kanan said, but he smirked when he did.

Hera didn't waste time worrying. She told Sabine to contact them any time she needed anything, no matter when or where. She reminded her that she had just as much right to be pushy and impatient right back at Ezra and he probably needed that. She gave her a new set of paints and said when they came to visit, she expected her eyes to bleed from the colors covering every surface.

"Don't be alone," she said. "You'll drive each other up the wall."

"AP-5 is coming with us."

Hera hesitated. "I'm not sure that's better."

Zeb joined them, and that was much better, even if it meant her own ship echoed with too many memories.

* * *

Hera couldn't stay in one place long, not without feeling the pull of space and adventure calling for her. The month-long wait on Lothal was a different kind of agony, but she wouldn't be anywhere else than at Sabine's side, holding her hand and reminding her of all the breathing exercises she'd practiced.

As Sabine rested, and Ezra stayed with her, stuck in a shock-filled face as everything finally caught up with him, Hera made herself busy in the brightly-painted nursery.

"Hello, Mira," she said, taking the cloth and wiping her clean again before lifting her into a cuddle.

"You know," Kanan said, stepping behind her and holding one hand against her arm, "people can feel a lot of different things at the same time."

"I know."

"It's okay to feel happy for Sabine and Ezra, and be glad everyone is safe and healthy," his own breath caught, "and also to feel sad, maybe, that it never worked out that way for us. You can love Mira and still wish we'd had kids of our own."

She closed her eyes. "We raised great kids," she said. "I'm so proud of them for everything they've accomplished. I wasn't ready to be a grandmother, but here she is, and she's perfect."

* * *

It made sense to stay close by. Infant care was difficult on anyone, even if they had a testy droid to act as nanny. The baby's first milestones were new for all of them. Hera didn't intend to miss a single one.

There were also close enough to chat every day, which grew more important as time passed. Kanan could keep an eye, figuratively, on Ezra, while Hera didn't exactly pry into how things were going.

"You didn't want to call her Mira?"

"I don't mind," Sabine said. "He really wanted to name her after his mother. If we have another girl, I'll push harder to call her Riya."

"Another one?"

"No time soon," Sabine said, laughing. "She's not even sleeping through the night yet!"

The little things were troublesome. Ezra wanted Sabine to work on her Force skills even though they'd all explained that wasn't something that would grow for her. She'd channeled herself into her art. The Force might help her paint heart-clenching works that inspired millions, if she could get that showing on Coruscant lined up, but she still couldn't levitate anything larger than a fallen brush.

"It's jealousy," Kanan said, after they'd left from another visit. "He's already talking about training Mira."

"You said Jedi used to start their training early."

"Parents aren't supposed to train their own children. We're not even supposed to have children. Or get married." He drifted into silence.

"Terrible influence," she reminded him.

"Yeah."

* * *

In the numbing days that followed, Hera reminded herself that decompression led to asphyxiation in less than a minute, and unconsciousness long before that. They would barely have had time to recognize what had happened before they would have passed out. There would have been almost no time even to feel the cold, to be frightened, to feel pain.

Pain was for those who stayed behind.

Zeb wasn't, _hadn't been_ , one of her children in the same way the other two were, though she'd covered him in the same teasing label. He'd been a friend, and a hole gaped inside her heart where he'd been, beside the empty chasm Sabine left.

"An accident," Ezra said, and it was all he could say. The shuttle the two had taken suffered a mechanical failure. It was meaningless, pointless, infuriating. They'd fought for years in a war that had claimed countless lives, and they died now because a small seal failed integrity during a routine flight? No. How dare the Force allow that.

"Why aren't you angry?" Hera demanded, as Kanan paced, taking his turn comforting the baby.

"There's no one to be angry at. Anger wouldn't solve anything if it was someone's fault. Sh," he said into Mira's dark hair, soothing her. "This is the reason we're not supposed to get attached."

"You don't care?" The shot was cruel, and Hera would have taken the words back if she could.

"Of course I care. Of course I'm grieving. I could do a lot of damage if I give into what I'd like to feel right now. Hand me a mug and I could boil water. But I'm not holding a mug, and I could hurt her, or you just by thinking about it. I can't. I won't." His head turned towards the back, where Ezra was trying to sleep for the first time in two days. "You have the luxury of being angry for us. You don't want to find out what happens if we join you. Sh," he said again, jostling his arms.

Zeb had wanted his body destroyed. Too many out there would have given a lot to dissect the last Lasat, and he'd wanted to tell them to push off one more time. Sabine had asked that her remains be returned to Mandalore, and that was another fight.

"She should be on Lothal," Ezra said. "We're on Lothal. Mira is already going to grow up without her mother. She should at least be able to visit her grave."

"It's not about what you want. She told all of us the same thing. Are you really going to deny her final request?"

"If it means her daughter doesn't forget her, yes."

No one in Sabine's family, birth or adopted, came from Mandalore to complain, and Hera let Ezra win the argument, watching the angers grow in his eyes as the days passed and the grief grew. If they'd only lost one of their beloved friends, things might have been different, still hard but not this devastating. With two gone at once, they all reeled too hard and even clutching to one another didn't offer a firm shoulder.

"I should have been able to stop it," Ezra said, watching as the caretaker droids slowly filled in the grave. "I should have been strong enough. She shouldn't be dead." He turned. "If she had her powers, she might have survived."

There was more, and Hera feared it would come to a fight. Emotion roiled inside him, looking for escape. If he funneled that rage at Kanan now, the lightsabers would come out and only one of them would survive. A blade's edge stood between them all, and this one, last time, Ezra stepped back and walked away.

"Will he turn?" The hour was late, and neither could sleep. The only reason Ezra slept now was through a less than polite sedative administered by a medical droid. He would be out for the better part of a day.

Kanan didn't answer for a long time. Mira slept in the _Ghost_ 's spare bunk tonight, safe and unaware. Hera said, "If he falls, he will take her with him to the Dark Side. If we run away with her now, he will never, ever stop hunting us. He knows every alias either of us has ever used. He knows all our contacts and all our friends. We can't go to any of them. We can't endanger anyone else. So you have to tell me you're certain."

"I'm sure."

Hera gave a sharp nod. "Chopper, tell AP-5 to get aboard now."

* * *

Leia knew who would be at the door before she answered, and a quick check to the security camera confirmed her suspicion. The message had arrived two days ago, a quick warning to spread to the rest of their contacts. Leia had checked the point of origin, and found the planet three systems from Lothal. A familiar freighter had been sold there at the same time. The _Ghost_ would be too recognizable, Leia knew, and she wondered if the loss of the ship had ached as much as the deaths.

 _"Protect yourselves from him. Don't try to find us,"_ the message had said, and that was the last she would ever hear from either one.

She opened the door. "Ezra. It's good to see you. I was so sorry to hear about what happened."

Her own father's face had always been hidden by his mask. She'd never met the Emperor. She wondered if their eyes had been this fiery. "Are they here?"

"Who?"

"You know who." His voice dripped with fury. She could feel the power coiling inside him now. "They stole my daughter. I want her back. You have to understand."

"Hello, Ezra," said Luke. He would have been watching over the camera, too. "I'm sorry for your loss."

He took one step back as Luke came to stand beside her. Leia said, "They're not here. They're not coming here. I don't know where they've gone. You know they'll do anything to keep her safe."

His hands pulled into fists. The power flowed, but he was afraid of Luke, and he was no match for the two of them together. "Mira is mine. She will only be safe with me."

"I don't think that's true," said Luke.

Behind them, back in the garden, Ben laughed. He was playing with the new game Luke had brought over today. Ezra's eyes flicked past her, and she went cold. "How would you feel if someone stole your child right from under you?"

"You need to go now," Leia said, knowing her own anger was never far from her reach, and knowing where that led. "We can make you leave. You know that. I am sorry for what happened, but you will leave now. Do not come back."

* * *

Her first memories were of flying. Grandmother would let her sit up on her lap, holding the controls and guiding her little hands as they glided through the eternal night. She liked to sit cross-legged on the floor with Grandfather as he taught her to spin her toys in the air, and her droid taught her letters and numbers with games, but the whoosh of the ship nosing between the stars was the best of all.

She wanted to spend forever in space, and so did Grandmother, but they couldn't. "She has to grow up around other children."

"I'll take her on world with me when we stop for supplies," Grandfather said, and it was always him. A blind human with a little human girl drew less attention than Grandmother's species would holding Riya's hand. Grandmother only went alone, or with one of the droids.

"It's safer," she explained, when Riya asked. "Not everyone likes it when humans and non-humans spend time together."

"Why?" It was her favorite word.

"Because some people are silly."

There was more. When her mind was right, she could pick up the things Grandfather didn't say as he helped her memorize which names they were using on the planet they visited today. He worried about being seen, not by silly people, but by dangerous people.

"What's a spy?" she asked him as the droids loaded the last of their supplies.

"Someone who looks for things they shouldn't. Go aboard. I'll finish here."

Every night, she was tucked in, sometimes with a story, sometimes with a song in one of the languages she was learning. Then Grandmother would show her a holo of a pretty girl with bright hair. "This was your mother. She loved you so much." Riya liked those stories the best, even if Grandmother was always sad when she told them.

She wondered if her own hair would grow in blue or pink or white someday, instead of this dull brown which Grandfather couldn't see and Grandmother didn't know what to do with except pull away from her eyes and hope for the best.

* * *

"He's found us."

She didn't understand, not the horror on their faces, nor the quick orders Grandmother gave to the droids. "He can't read your minds. If he finds you, you must," she swallowed, "you both must wipe your memory banks of the last six years. All records."

Chopper complained, but Grandmother said, "If you follow any order I have ever given you, follow this one. You have to take her somewhere safe, somewhere Ezra won't find her. There are seven systems with habitable worlds within a day's travel of here. There are ten more you can reach in two days. Choose one and you must not tell us where until the danger is past. He'll be tracking the ship, and you. You have to come back here with us." She stroked his face plate.

Riya trembled, even as Grandfather lifted her and cuddled her and told her not to be frightened, never to be frightened. "We'll come for you as soon as we can." Below the soothing, she could hear other words, as Grandfather thought, _"There's a chance he won't kill us both on sight."_

Grandmother kissed her face, and told her to listen to AP-5. "We love you very much. Everything will be fine." They left the ship, and Chopper watched them until the hatch closed before going to the controls.

AP-5 took her hand. "Come, Riya," he said. "We will find you somewhere safe."

Grandfather had been teaching her foresight, though, and she knew she would never feel safe again.

end


End file.
